Project: Sandbox

A day and a half hike to the East of Downsburrough lies the small town of Haddonfield. The town revolves around its lush orchards, but is (was) home to a wizard named Langenkamp. Langenkamp became increasingly interested in dark magic, however, which was upsetting to the townspeople—especially the priest, Father Maxwell Friedkin. Father Friedkin eventually led a mob to Langenkamp’s windmill, blocking the wizard inside and burning the building down.

With his dying breath, Langenkamp cursed the town of Haddonfield: a thick cloud of black smoke surrounded the town, many residents were turned into terrible “Blackened Things,” and some had more specific fates. (For example, Father Friedkin was transformed into a terrible dog-boar that could only eat carrion, and never leave the Temple grounds, nor go inside.) Meanwhile, Langenkamp wandered as a liche surrounded by a pillar of fire, terrorizing the townspeople with his Blackened Thing minions.

This state of affairs had the Lord of the Land, Lord Haddock, a bit worried. However, Agent Deathstrike, Odin Stonebreaker and Skrell had by this point made a small name for themselves as a group willing to do anything—for a price—and unphased by the arcane, eldritch, or otherwise bizarre. Haddock send this crew out to take care of the “issue” at Haddonfield.

They discovered, in the basement of the windmill, the body of an innocent young man. He had curled up on a couch for an afternoon nap, and got caught up in the conflagration initiated by Father Friedkin. Giving this young man a proper burial removed the curse on the town—and got the attention of the Langenkamp the Liche, who they defeated in battle.

The trio did not stick around to be praised by the grateful townspeople; they quickly headed out to Lord Haddock’s keep to collect their payment.

Rumors were later spread of a magical statue in the tomb. BigMan Bob, the Thieves’ Guildmaster, hired Agent Deathstrike to retrieve it for him. She took with her a new acquaintance, a bloodthirsty Atlantean named Skrell. They successfully brought back the statue, though nobody knows why BigMan Bob wanted it.

Meanwhile, BigMan Bob had sent another member of the Thieves’ Guild to investigate another tomb recently uncovered. When he did not return, BigMan Bob hired Agent Deathstrike to go find out what happened. An experienced tomb raider by this point, Agent Deathstrike knew not to go into a tomb alone, so she brought along a halfling who happened through Downsburrough: Odin Stonebreaker.

In the small town of Downsburrough, a couple of strange characters have been seen. One came in as a Half-Orc named “Agent Deathstrike.” Shortly thereafter, a young man with a pair of dragons’ heads sprouting out of his shoulders came to the thieves’ guild. The guild master—BigMan Bob—did not like the young up-start, and sent him to certain death in the fabled Horsehead Tomb. The BigMan then hired Agent Deathstrike to go along and make sure the young man did not come back. As far as he knows, the young man met his fate that day in the tomb, and Agent Deathstrike returned with dragon heads rising from her shoulders, thus qualifying her name. (The BigMan doesn’t know it, but the dragons voluntarily left the young man, who was so overjoyed about the end of his curse that he embarked on a new path in life, one that did not take him back to Downsburrough).